Astronomy Teacher Finds Hubble Telescope's Hidden Treasure

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A Connecticut astronomy teacher has uncovered a dazzling view of
a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way while exploring the "hidden
treasures" of the Hubble Space Telescope.

The new Hubble photo, released Thursday (Jan. 17), shows an
intriguing star nursery dotted with dark dust lanes in the Large
Magellanic Cloud about 200,000 light-years from Earth. The Hubble
observation used to create the image was discovered in the
telescope's archives by Josh Lake, a high school astronomy
teacher at Pomfret School in Pomfret, Conn., as part of the
" Hubble
Hidden Treasures " contest that challenged space fans to find
unseen images from the observatory.

Lake won first prize in the Hubble photo contest with an image of
the LHA 120-N11 (N11) region of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Hubble officials combined Lake's image with more observations of
the N11 region in blue, green and near-infrared light wavelengths
to create the new view.

"In the center of this image, a dark finger of dust blots out
much of the light," Hubble officials said in an image
description. "While nebulae are mostly made of hydrogen, the
simplest and most plentiful element in the universe, dust clouds
are home to heavier and more complex elements, which go on to
form rocky planets like the Earth." [ Hubble
Telescope's Hidden Treasures: Winning Photos

The interstellar dust in N11 is extremely fine, much more so than
household dust on Earth. It is more similar to smoke, researchers
explained.

The Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, is one of two small satellite
galaxies of the Milky Way (the other is the smaller, aptly named
Small Magellanic Cloud). Because of its relatively close
proximity, the Large Magellanic Cloud has long been used as a
sort of cosmic laboratory to study how stars form in other
galaxies.

"It lies in a fortuitous location in the sky, far enough from the
plane of the Milky Way that it is neither outshone by too many
nearby stars, nor obscured by the dust in the Milky Way’s
center," Hubble officials said in a statement. "It is also close
enough to study in detail … and lies almost face-on, giving us a
bird’s eye view."

In addition to the N11 region, the Large Magellanic Cloud is also
home to the spectacular Tarantula nebula, the brightest nearby
star nursery, Hubble officials said.

The Hubble
Space Telescope has been snapping spectacular photos of the
universe since 1994 and is a joint project by NASA and the
European Space Agency. This month, NASA officials said the
long-lived space observatory could potentially last through 2018.

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